Sleep Walker

Timing

: 11:00 onwards.

Start Date

: May 16, 2000

End Date

: June 5, 2000

Category

: Mixed media & drawing

Artist

: Ashutosh Bhardwaj

Venue

: Vadehra Art Gallery, D 178, Okhla Phase I

City

: New Delhi, Delhi  [India]

In his recent works - mostly paintings and a video-sculpture installation - Baroda-based young artist Ashutosh Bhardwaj questions today’s superficial human existence. His multilayered works, which look like documentaries on canvas, target our consumerist attitudes. Ashutosh picks references from medieval European paintings, Indian miniatures as well as mass media. His images, whether of superheroes like Superman or athletes or models, are interspersed with text from newspapers and magazines showcasing the human psyche succumbing to the global market.

• In Animal Farm, Ashutosh alludes to George Orwell’s Animal Farm. A hen divides the canvas into two. In one part, multiple sleepwalkers sit astride a herd of sheep—symbolising society’s herd mentality. And the other part shows clouds holding different cultural, social and religious icons of our social systems.

• In Sure White, Fair & White, Maxi White, Ashutosh derives from American realist painter Eric Fischl. He uses Eric’s controversial image of adolescent sexuality and voyeurism as a silent witness, looking over India’s very dynamic metropolitan landscape.

Animal Farm, George Orwells Animal Farm, American realist painter Eric Fischl, Adolescent sexuality, Voyeurism, Silent witness, Cultural, Social, Religious icons, Social systems, Sure White, Fair and White, Maxi White, Medieval European paintings